As anyone who performs a lot of mechanical work will attest to the fact that nothing beats having the proper tool for a particular job. The proper tool can save time, save money, produce a higher quality job, reduce damage to equipment, and provide for increased worker safety. The proper tool can convert a difficult, long, and dangerous job to a job that is easily and quickly accomplished.
One (1) field of work that uses a multitude of specialty tools is automotive bodywork. During such work it is often necessary to completely remove a body structure. Easily said, often very difficult to do. Pickup trucks often need to have their cab, truck bed, or other body part removed. These items are often very heavy, awkward, unbalanced, rusted, damaged, frozen in place or just unforgivingly difficult to remove from the rest of the vehicle. Making the problem even more difficult is that some body parts must be lifted using a limited number of specific contact points.
Lifting is typically performed using any of number of rather special lifts such as overhead cranes; cherry pickers; engine hoists and the like. While generating the power to lift a body part isn't difficult, lifting the right part using the right lifting points is challenging. This may require up to four people at one (1) time to make sure that the body structure is carefully staged, lifted and removed. This obviously represents a large cost that is not feasible for many smaller body shop operations.
In addition, placing new or repaired body parts on a truck is even more challenging in that improper lifting can damage an expensive body part and result in an unhappy customer.
Accordingly, there exists a need for a tool by which pickup truck body structures and other such structures can be easily lifted, removed, and replaced by one (1) person. Preferably such a tool would be useful for lifting truck bodies, truck cabs and other motor vehicle body parts with a reduced possibility of damage. Ideally such a tool would support vehicle contact plates that are adjustable in X-Y-Z axes while enabling balanced lifting. Preferably the contact plates would not mar the body finish and would be quickly adjustable.